


Day 2: Entwined

by imhereforthecookies



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 13:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4748606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imhereforthecookies/pseuds/imhereforthecookies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 Days of Writing Challenge</p>
<p>Day 2: Entwined</p>
<p>Hannibal's subconscious is trying to tell him something that he already knows. (Mild Hannigram, but Will isn't actually in it. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 2: Entwined

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I did minimal research about vellum and pens and ink. Don't hold me responsible if any of it is incorrect.

Day 2: Entwined

It was no secret that Dr. Hannibal Lecter was an avid consumer of the arts. One only had to step foot into his foyer to know that. From the priceless paintings adorning the hall to the Elisabeth Schwarzkopf that rung from the antique record player, anyone that entered his house suddenly had the same feeling that they might get in a museum. That if they even looked too hard, they might ruin something. 

Hannibal also considered himself a fairly talented artist, although he liked to work on a different canvas. Human skin, muscle, and bone were his preferred mediums, although a pencil and paper would do if those things were not available. With his resolution to stay out of sight from law enforcement after he was nearly caught, thanks to the ramblings of Will Graham, he only allowed himself to work with things that could be purchased. His paper was real calfskin vellum bought from Spain, and his Italian fountain pens were filled with ink made from Indian black tea by a man in Greece. It was the humble way, but it was necessary. 

He sat down at his drawing desk, a beast of a table that he had purchased in Amsterdam after its 102-year old owner passed away. He laid out a new sheet of vellum in portrait orientation, smoothing it until it was flawless. He took a moment to appreciate the emptiness of an untouched canvas, all the possibilities it held on its pristine surface. Then, he carefully selected a pen from the vase in which he kept them, and began his drawing by making random lines across the page. If Hannibal did not have a specific idea in mind, he liked to let his mind do the drawing, moving his hand by some supernatural force, leading him to a subject. 

He continued to make curved lines, and the vague shape of a human was realized. With short strokes, he filled in the body with hills and crevices, forming each muscle and feature as its own work of art. Above the body, he connected lines with thicker lines, then with thinner ones. He ended some of them in points, some in blunt crescents, all of them touching one another, until they were no longer distinguishable from one stroke to the next. 

He signed the bottom, and stepped back to appreciate his work. When he did, he felt as though someone had slapped his face with a cold towel.   
The figure was reminiscent of a classical portrait of Satan, except the face, he realized, was his own. The figure's horns were in tangled, random clusters except in the middle, where the contrasts of black and white formed the face of Will Graham. 

Hannibal liked it. It was a symbol of how close he and Will Graham had become. So entwined that they had formed two halves of one being, just like the figure and the horns combined two things into one. He decided that he needed to pay his old friend Will a visit. It had been too long.


End file.
